Automated model generation and simplification for district heating and cooling networks

Abstract

The current operation of district heating networks often relies on static analyses and control parameters. In the future, possible integration of renewable energy sources like solar or geothermal energy are getting more and more important. To investigate the impact of these new energy source in combination with new control strategies, dynamic simulation models for district heating and cooling systems are getting more important. However, these models are often large and therefore have large computation times and require manual effort to create and optimize them. Thus, this paper investigates in the simulation of a large and meshed district heating network. We present a workflow for automated generation and model simplification of simulation models based on GIS data. The validity of the model simplification is proven and the usability of the model is demonstrated by a Use Case with two different control strategies.